The Filmic Journey

We have always been fascinated by the future, virtual worlds and real to life games. The late 90’s and early 2000’s was evidence of this abundance of cheap thrill virtual fantasy movies. There are 3 movies from my past I totally forgot about that looking back I actually really enjoyed but to be honest, they were held back by the technology at the time. These 3 movies in my opinion could do with a remake right now. Let me start with “Lawnmower man”. This movie was about a scientist played by Pierce Brosnan, who had an idea to stimulate the mind with virtual reality and raising intelligence. Like most ideas ahead of their time, no one wanted to invest in such a radical concept. The scientist like most creative’s gets desperate to realize his work and uses his basement as the platform for his experiment and unethically uses a mentally challenged lawnmower man played by Jeff Fahey, in his neighbourhood as his subject. Not only does his experiment succeed in making this man more intelligent, his intelligence actually exceeds the intelligent of every human being and the results become catastrophically diabolical. The story was solid, the acting was solid, however, it was challenged by the CGI of the times. I can see Director Joseph Kosinski from Tron Legacy directing this. Not sure who the writer should be though. Second movie I think should be remade is “Virtuosity” starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. This movie was about a simulation of the ultimate serial killer. Take all the worst serial killers and just greatest evil minds of all time and stuff them into one virtual being. One can see how this would be initially useful. After all, you can train better law enforcers with a knowledge base like this. Of course in true late 90’s early 2000’s fashion, the virtual being finds a way to create a physical version of itself. Back then that was pretty farfetched, but with Today’s 3D printing technology, Nano-technology and cloning, it could very well be plausible. When this super killer escapes they find no holds barred cop Denzel Washington, a man who has snuffed out a few serial killers in his tenure to help out. Of course, this leads to non-stop action. This movie had better special effects than Lawnmower man, being that it was made in 1995 a full 3 years later. Still, the CGI is aged now and could do with a revamp. Definitely, who I would want to see direct this would be Bad Boys” director Michael Bay. I know some of you just cringed when I said that, but to be honest, “Virtuosity” was a full out action movie about blazing guns of glory. The only other directors I would contemplate is Rian Johnson of “Loopers” coupled with writers Thomas Harris and Ted Tally of “Silence of the lambs”. The last movie I would remake is “Brainstorm” starring Christopher Walken from 1983. This movie explores something I have always wondered about. What’s it like in someone else’s mind from their perspective? How different is it from my own. Of course, it gets controversial when the military uses it control the minds of people they want to use as pawns to commit unethical acts and control pilots in enemy air crafts to attack their own in warfare. This story is a played out one, but with scientists now knowing how to control the mind of a roach, it’s a matter of time before they figure out how to use microwaves to control the mind of a human, especially if injecting chips in us becomes legal. Just a matter of time before a cell phone becomes an under the skin embedded device. There was no real CGI used in this, mostly point of view angles, so it was very effective, but I feel this movie has long been forgotten and deserves a rehashing. I am thinking JJ Abrams for this one. I am sure some of you hate my list. I am sure some of you hate my director picks. Share your thoughts with me in the comments below. Let me know your thoughts. Are these movies worthy of being remade? Who would you choose to direct? Nivek Pro Jamaican Filmmaker out.